Here in central NC the bees are all over and then some...and have been in my front yard since early April (even with the cooler-than-normal Spring).

My front yard is all wildflowers/annuals/perennials rather than a lawn, though. The usual "white clover" summer crop (and lawn pest) is a bit behind normal in flowering in some areas around here based upon what I'm seeing driving around.

The only thing I'm used to that hasn't shown up yet, though, is beetles. Their population this season around my yard has been extremely lower than usual.

nc-crn, I too have perennials and herbs in the whole of my front yard now, no grass and clover in place of grass in my back yard and leave some of it uncut so it will flower for the critters, around the raised veg beds and more perennials and raspberries. I am seeing what seems to be the normal number of bee's too, but I'll be paying more attention to be sure. I also let a certain number of dandelions flourish, as I understand they are about the first food available for bees in the very early spring. (and I eat the leaves... hey, free food:)
I've been researching this somewhat and a lot of the problem and low populations seem to be more in the mid west and corn belts (treated corn seed?) It would be interesting to hear if those gardeners in these area's have noticed a drop in bee's and perhaps butterflies?

If they're in my area, it's because it's the chilly weather. It's been abnormally cool this year. When it's cool the bees are not very active. Been a minimal amount of activity with the bumble bees. Haven't noticed much in terms of the carpenter bees.

It hit the mid-eighties today and sure enough there was a honey bee happily gathering from my sage.

In the meantime, I'm also hand pollinating because I have six squash plants, each with 1-2 female flowers, and if I'm lucky, one male among them. So I have to spread that boy around. :P

This post was edited by CaraRose on Tue, Jun 11, 13 at 22:26

Well, chemical sprays are partly responsible for reduction in bee population. The other factors are old weather and lots of rain. Yet another factor is the quality of blossoms. In my garden there are a lot of bees but they are attracted to certain flowers like sage, iris,...I counted today, there were 10 bees on my sage. They are not interested in tomato flowers. So in order to attract them, you have to have flowers that they like then they will also visit other flowers.

I too have a ton of bees...the flowering apricot tree in the Spring brings them in droves.

The "bee issue" is getting a bit skewed...

Wild bee populations in urban areas are dropping...wild bee populations outside of urban areas are rather normal almost everywhere.

Wild bee species are declining, but overall bee populations are still rather healthy in most areas. There's a few groups out there talking about bees disappearing from the wild that talking about species rather than overall numbers...some people are picking this up as overall wild bee numbers disappearing. It may not be good to see species numbers shrinking, but it's linked too many times to overall numbers of bees shrinking rather than types of species shrinking.

Hives of commercial beekeepers are dropping like flies...

Is it chemical pressure (including GMO BT)? Is it pesticide misuse (too much, too improperly)? Is it pollution pressure? Is it inbreeding pressure (European and Western honeybees make a majority of keeper bees)? Is it immunity pressure (many commercial honey bees have their honey harvested and are fed sugar/corn syrup mixtures)? Is it loss of desired habitat? Is it mites? Is it a pathogen?

...is it a combination of some/all of these?

There's people who think they have the answers...but they don't...and if they did we'd be addressing Colony Collapse Disorder.

Some people want to believe there's some conspiracy(s) keeping some countries from dealing with it and there's an existing slam-dunk answer, but that's all noise. There's a LOT of people who have their hands in researching the issue and an answer means 100s of millions of dollars to the beekeeper industry, and in turn, to those farmers who rely on renting those commercial pollinators. Aside from making money off harvested honey, many commercial beekeeping operation are rented by crop growers who need these bees for best production/pollination. They travel with their bees 100s-1000s of miles renting them out, field to field, season after season.

California, especially, cares a LOT about this and they wouldn't be taking crap from anyone on this issue if they knew what was up with what was causing CCD. Their stone fruit (including almonds) industry is extremely important.

While pesticide use is linked to bee death...and certain types seem to be more prevalent in causing death...there is no solid CCD link yet. There's been millions upon millions of postmortem studies done on CCD bees and no one can find the smoking gun yet. There's studies pointing to pesticides, mites, virus, bacteria, immunity issues from replacing honey with sugars after honey harvest, and combinations of all of these factors...but no slam-dunk conclusion, yet.

Bee breeders are hot on these issues, but they need more of a clue on what to breed for (or get out of our environment)...and what factors are the major contributors.

It's also worth mentioning that bee pollination...while important for genetic diversification of many wild, non-human important crops...is mainly an issue for food products such as tree fruits, berries, and squash/melons/cukes. To those farmers this is serious business, but we're not in a world food crisis because of any of this. A lot of our most important food crops (and almost all grown in our gardens) are self-pollinated or wind pollinated quite successfully without any insect interaction.

What will be interesting to see is if the 2 year (I believe I read 2 years) ban on the treated corn seed in European Countries makes any difference to the bee population or not. For the wild bee's, another problem is loss of habitat and food sources, as Cities sprawl into what was once open fields. Bee's can set up shop just about anywhere but humans are just not as happy about it when it's under the eaves of the house.
It's been wet and cool here too, hopefully the wild bee's can make it without much food, till the better weather comes (It IS going to come, isn't it????:(

I don't have any bees. I have 2 fairly large tomatillo plants covered in flowers doing nothing because there's nothing there to pollinate it (I tried hand pollination but I didn't have any luck with it). I just harvested my only tomatillo yesterday and I was watching when a wasp was going from flower to flower hoping it was going to pollinate some, so not even that one was done by a bee.

I started some flowers and hope to draw them in with that.

FINALLY some sunny warm weather yesterday (rain in the evening) and Sun and warm again today. Yesterday honey bee's were out in good numbers in my yard. I'm in the middle of a Major City.
Three species of bees spotted where "Bubble Bees" of course, the much smaller dark yellow/orange, black striped bees and the bit larger yellow and black bees. They were all over the raspberry, pea, and rose blossoms, the clover flowers, herbs, and, as usual, rolling around like they were drunk in the giant poppies and covered in the brown pollen:)
I don't have any other veg in blossom yet, cuc's, butternut and egg plant are still only 4 leaves so only the beginning of the season here for me. Fingers crossed that I someday get more then 2 days in a row of sun and warmth!
IAmSupernova, where about's are you located and what's your weather been like?

Thanks, nc, for the info and perspective. Some of the articles about CCD can make one feel that the end of the world is nigh. And I thought I had read that the wild bees were almost gone -- just like I'd read that 90% of the commercial bees were gone, when another article put it more at at somewhat over 2/3 being gone (6 million hives a few years ago down to 2.5 million hives this year)

I, too, am interested in what the 2 year ban on the nicotine-type insecticides in Europe will show in terms of its effect on bee keeper's bees.

I tell you one thing, the wasps that are making their nest above our basement door are being left alone to do whatever they want!

I seem to have plenty of bees around here. Plenty of bumble bees, and I think someone nearby is keeping bees because I see a lot of honeybees too. I still hand pollinate my first few squash early on, until the bees find them. Later on there's so much bee activity it's not necessary for me.

I have gazillions of honey bees, Plus other bees. I think they are wild. I don't know how to tell the difference between wild and domestic honey bees.

I am pretty sure there are no beekeepers within miles of me.

There isn't a lot of commercial farming near me. The closest one that would use pesticides is about 1/2 mile away, usually corn for silage or some other type stuff for silage, it is a dairy farmers field.

I have a wheat field that joins my property but I haven't saw them spray anything and normally wheat doesn't have bug problems in my area.

I have a lot of things that attract them though, fruit trees, crimson and white clover. They love my figs, they get more than half of them.